With one foot in the dark
by crimson gates of paradise
Summary: It was one year after battlecity. Tormented by weird dreams and evil cats, Malik decided to go on a nightly walk. Big Mistake. It lead him directly to that old acquaintance. To trouble.


Ok, now... Before you shoot me:

**I CAN EXPLAIN!**

This is a fic that will be regularly updated. I've got the most of the plot already worked out and now it's just looking where summer break and those nectarines will take it.

It actually started as original fiction, but then the word 'Radamned' snuck in and suddenly a whole plot popped up out of nowhere. I all owe this to 'Radamned' -bows for 'Radamned'-

About the other fics:

**An Ominous Mind:** Will be updated ASAP. Since my manga provider dissappeared into thin air I can only use the little I can remember and thus I decided to use that and for what I can't remember I make something up... Actually it was planned to be canon, but... Well that's impossible if I ever want to continue it. I'm sorry. But I won't rest until I've updated, cuz this fic is my little baby and the first fic I really wrote by myself. I'm **not** discontinuing it...

**Facing the elements:** Will be paused for a while. I'll continue this after summer break.

**The Last Day:** Will be updated whenever I've got the will to change the whole perspective. I've got until chapter 10 on quizilla (for a link: see profile), but the version here will be slightly different. Still, you can read it there or wait until I update it here. Which will happen... Sometime... -sweat drops-

Now: **ON WITH THE FIC!**

* * *

**_Chapter one_**

**_Eyes_**

"One… two…"  
She sat on a fence, slowly swinging her legs back and forth.  
"Three… four…"  
Her innocent, green eyes gazed into the distance while she counted in a soft voice.  
Her light brown hair would have touched her shoulders, but was tied together in a messy ponytail.  
Black satin ribbons flowed down her back.  
"Five… six…"

She suddenly bowed her head down and looked at the ground. Her eyes were hidden by a few escaped strands of her hair.  
"six…" she whispered.  
A silver tear dropped down.  
All of the world focused on it. How it slowly fell down and landed on the sunburned grass, immediately disappearing into the thirsty earth.  
She looked up.  
Her eyes shone, too much for her emotion to be happiness.  
Still she smiled.

But that smile was too big to be real.

She spoke again, still softly, but too soft to be innocent.  
"Seven…"  
Another tear found its way down her cheek.  
It stopped when it reached her chin and stayed, doubting if it would fall, or hang in there.  
She tried to hold on to her smile. It made her face to a stone mask.  
Only that tear was real.

She took a deep breath.  
Her hands clenched around the wood.  
Her knuckles became white.  
She looked op at the sky and slowly rocked back and forth.

Then she looked straight at him. Now her cheeks were completely wet. Her eyes were big, her smile was forever frozen.  
Eventually a new stream of tears appeared.  
Her smile broke… and disappeared for good.  
She sighed. The last tear finally decided and fell, shattering as if it was made out of glass.

Her look changed.  
Her face relaxed.  
Her mouth went a little agape and a little stream of blood flowed from the corner of her lips, following the track her tears left.  
She fell too, forwards from the fence.  
She lay limply on the brown grass.  
A last breath escaped from her.

_"Eight…"_

In the dark it was difficult to see, but he exactly knew where he was looking at. It was the wood covering the ceiling of his room. He had woken up for the third time that night, only he didn't remember why. He noticed it was too cold and discovered the bed sheets were gone, probably lying sadistically on the floor. After a muffled curse and two minutes he finally got cold enough to give in and turn around to pick them up.

He looked right into two big, green eyes.

He yelped and jumped back, jumped too far back and fell off the other side of his bed. He stayed there for a second, jumped up and threw a pillow at the guilty unit. "Fuck off, you Radamned furball!"

The furball hissed and disappeared with a swing of its tail.

He grumbled something about burning cats, then crawled over his bed to retrieve his pillow. He looked around, spotted the sheets and plucked them from the floor. He stood there for a moment, closed his eyes, addressed some more curses to the cat and then dumped the pillow and sheets on his bed. The stupid thing had fully woken him up and there was no chance of sleep left. He growled some more and then went rummaging through the room, in search for anything that looked and/or could be used as jeans. He ended up finding some under a pile of dusty, rarely used schoolbooks. He pulled them on over his boxer and then went on another quest for something called 'shirt'.

After finally being dressed, he walked outside his room (of course, not without hitting three toes and almost tripping two times) and made his way through the apartment. After what seemed like ages he finally found his keys and walked outside. He took the elevator down and started to walk aimlessly through the streets of the city.

He followed the sidewalk, hands in his pockets and his eyes gazing at the stars. He liked being outside in the open air. He liked the night even more. He didn't know why. It had probably to do with the quietness of the city and the stars. Or else it was because he was used to it. In the last weeks these nightly walks had become almost a habit. He just kept on waking up, knowing he had dreamt, but not remembering what. The problem was he rarely was able to return to sleep afterwards.

He sighed.

And if it weren't those stupid dreams, it had to be that damned cat. It wasn't even his cat! He grumbled something. He still didn't get how that little monster managed to creep inside. He did leave the window open, but. Come on! He lived on a third floor apartment and cats couldn't fly. At least not for as far as he knew.

He found himself standing in front of a high, iron gate. Nice, he had walked himself right to a graveyard. He pushed against the gate and noticed it wasn't locked. Shrugging and with no other ideas in mind he walked inside and closed it with a loud, chilling -clang- of iron hitting iron. He turned around, threw a look at the place and noticed it wasn't a graveyard at all, but just the city's park.

He sweat dropped.

Or his mind was too morbid, or those architects urgently needed a dictionary. Parks were meant to be green, happy and fluffy, with little kids rampaging around, playing tag and making you trip over their toys. Not… graveyard-like.

Stuffing his hands back in his pockets he started to walk down the path, ending up at the pond and flopping down on a uncomfortable, also graveyard-like iron bench. For as far as you could find benches of graveyards. On a bench next to him lay a man in a coat that was obviously five sizes to big and two seasons too hot. The guy was snoring a little and clutched an empty bottle in his hand.

He diverted his gaze and stared at the moonlight reflecting in the water. Why was he so restless? All right, he never had been able to stay in one place for very long, at least not since eight years ago. But 'restless' had a whole other meaning and the lack of sleep started to bug him in such a way that he felt tired pretty much all the time.

"Good evening, is this seat free?" a slightly familiar and sarcastic voice asked.

He didn't say anything and kept on staring absent-mindedly at the pond, while a little part of consciousness in the back of his mind tried to give the voice a name. He noticed the other person sitting down.

"Haven't you got any words for an old _friend_ that has come to visit you?" The other one asked. He could hear him smirking.

He rubbed his eyes tiredly. "You're not my _friend_, Bakura," He yawned.

He looked at the other person and noticed he had been right. He looked right at a white, spiky hairdo with two sly looking, brown eyes underneath. He suddenly realized something didn't fit in. He frowned and it took him a minute in which Bakura's smirk grew wider and wider, but finally he found out what part of the scene didn't belong there.

It was the whole fact of the spirit sitting next to him.

"Not that I care, but, what the hell are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be somewhere, I don't know, in the shadowrealm or something?" He asked, mentally preparing for the answer.

The spirit held something up. It looked so much like a golden dreamcatcher, but they both knew its looks were more than deceiving. You could easily call it the opposite.

It didn't protect its holder against nightmares, but contained them.

Bakura looked at the golden amulet for a while. His eyes were shining, though the moon could light nothing but his back at the angle it with which it sat in the sky. The tension hung in the air, while both teens looked at the curves of the piece of jewelry. The sight of it predicted something. It wasn't healthy.

Finally Bakura spoke, still with those shining eyes.

"I know it and I know that you must have guessed it, Malik, but that pharaoh seems too much of an imbecile to ever understand. He doesn't comprehend that the only thing keeping me to this world is _this_. This ring that forces me to stay, to come back."

Malik looked at the other one and found that he hadn't been wrong about those eyes. They were really shining. Like a cat's.

"As long as this ring exists, I'm virtually indestructible. I'm immortal…"  
Bakura narrowed his eyes, also in a very cat-like way.

_"I told you.  
I promised you I would be back…  
Well…  
Here I am…  
Back from the dark...  
and risen from the shadows…"_

The spirit's smirk now showed two sharp fangs.  
The ring confirmed his words.

Five innocent looking, but razor sharp, little shards softly dangled and mused in the wind.

* * *

AAAAAAAND... We're done! It's not really a cliffie, but... aww it could be one! heheh, what would Bakura be planning? What the hell is he doing in the park? And why does Malik seem so... almost depressed? Well, next chapter shall tell. 

Please, please, please, please, please, please, please review! (and no, I'm not desperate. It only seems that way, but I'm not... honestly... (please review? -chibi eyes-))

Ciao!

-takes off hat and disappears in a poof of smoke-


End file.
